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Saturday, 24 October 2015

TEPCO released a news release on October 20, 2015 titled "Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Unit 3 reactor containment vessel
(PCV) for internal survey result of (Bulletin: October 20, carried out in minutes)" [Japanese Version], they didn't provide an English Version.

TEPCO released inspection video and a PDF of their use of a camera to look inside of what remains of the #3 Reactor at Fukushima. Temperatures were about 30 degrees centigrade and the radiation level about 1 Sievert, One sievert carries with it a 5.5% chance of eventually developing cancer and is equivalent to 100 REM in older measurements. 6 Sieverts is a fatal dose.

In each image, the pictures clearly show extensive damage to the reactor containment vessel. Cracked walls, deposits of material, possibly corium or some burn residue. Fire damage.

In image on page 4 you can see what clearly look like Burn damage on the structures above where the core would be.

On Page 5 they disclose that the walls are badly damaged with support structures pulled away from the containment vessel

What is missing from the images is an image of the Core. TEPCO claimed that #3 exploded with a hydrogen explosion caused by the heat of the reactor cladding and cooling rods catalyzing water separating into hydrogen and oxygen and then burning together. But if that were so there would be remains of reactor all over the place. So the question is,....

Where is the reactor?

The answer is that the explosion was probably part of a "burn out" and the fuel was "aerosolized." The reactor probably got so hot and it's fuel started melting and "flashing" and burning, until enough burned away to quiet the uncontrolled chain reactions. But TEPCO doesn't say where the fuel went. They imply that some if it melted down through the floor. But it is just as likely that those explosions we saw on March 14, 2011. I remember watching the images. And indeed the FOIA Archives describe the situation on the 16th as:

"they described Unit 3 as having a 3 zirconium/water reaction ongoing. And they described 4 Unit 4 spent-fuel pool as having been substantially damaged to the point that the walls were no longer effective at retaining water." [NRC doc]

So we can guess where the reactor is. In our lungs. But of course, we have to keep on asking TEPCO to tell us the truth, because speculation is easy. We need the facts.

Saturday, 17 October 2015

" It may be hard to believe, but it’s already been four years since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster shook Japan and its agricultural industry to the core. Alas, some wounds are harder to heal than others and the aftermath from that fateful March day can still be felt. The latest challenge is this: growers and the Japanese government have been fighting desperately to assuage fears and regain the trust and markets their food products once proudly held.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster, of course, was an accident that occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, caused by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. This was the largest nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl meltdown of 1986.

Japan says it has gone to extensive lengths to ensure that the area surrounding the plant is not contaminated. It also goes without saying that a chief concern of said effort has been to minimize any radioactive contamination in food products and ensure that food does not reach the market if it doesn’t meet the nation’s tough safety laws.

READ: Fukushima Foods Are Now Safe to Eat

So, it should come as no surprise that Japan’s government has decided to pull out all the stops and get their Erin Brockovich on during at the Expo, a recent global food fair held in Milan. Traditional dried peaches and sake—both originating from Japan’s Fukushima prefecture—were offered up as part of a four-day campaign. Japan is obviously hoping to allay the international community’s fears surrounding Japanese foodstuffs post-Fukushima. OK, so unlike Brockovich, the government didn’t actually resort to unveiling the culinary offerings’ origin after people had ingested them, but they are on a campaign to get everyone’s attention.

“Our aim is to communicate the appeal of Fukushima’s traditional cuisine as the region is actively committed to reconstructing itself and ensuring the safety of local food products as well as increasing export and tourism,” stated one spokeswoman.

Fukushima’s prefectural government claims to have a “perfect” and transparent monitoring system in place to monitor and test all products. Over the last six months, Fukushima has reported only a very small percentage of food as having over-the-limit levels of radiation. For example, only one in a million bags of rice tested were found to have hazardous levels of radiation, while only .01 percent of all aquaculture products were deemed unsafe.

Stefan Merz, an environmental scientist from Vienna University of Technology, just this year published an analysis of the staggering 900,000 food samples collected by authorities in the prefecture between 2011 and 2014. Merz and the other researchers’ work has shown that the percentage of products deemed unsafe has decreased from 3.3 to 0.6.

READ: A Lost Soy Sauce Fungus Is Helping Post-Tsunami Japan to Bounce Back“The prefecture not only blocks shipment of these foodstuffs but also restricts the shipment of foodstuffs from municipalities where these contaminated foodstuffs are grown or produced,” reads an information brochure handed out at the Japan pavilion in Milan, stressing that the safety of food products that are on the market “is absolutely ensured.” In short, Japan wants you to know that “you can purchase them without anxiety.”

Still, government reassurances can only go so far. A cursory glance at the comments section on some English language publications shows the prejudice that Fukushima is facing. But it isn’t just foreigners that are skeptical. A survey back in February by the Consumer Affairs Agency in Japan revealed that one in five Japanese shoppers were wary of Fukushima foodstuffs.

But these are still the early stages of recovery for the troubled area of Japan. In September, the first of seven cities finally completely lifted its evacuation order that was put in place after the disaster, but only 200 of some 7,800 residents returned home.

Despite reassurances by the government, it looks as though Fukushima may have a ways to go before everything returns to normal—if it ever will."

Alexandor Klenberger, 26, an Austrian language teacher and journalist, said it would still be difficult to live here.

“But (Iitate) is not Chernobyl," he said. "We can see flowers growing. Houses are being taken care of. I feel this village is alive.”

Foreign visitors have returned and are on the increase in Fukushima Prefecture more than four years after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant accident.

Unlike some videos posted on the Internet that made light of the accident, visitors such as Klenberger are viewing Fukushima in a positive manner.

He traveled to Fukushima Prefecture to record the aftermath of the nuclear accident in August. Klenberger has covered the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and also offers language instruction to refugees from Syria and Afghanistan at home.

He took dozens of photos in the Odaka district in Minami-Soma, within the 20-kilometer zone from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant where the evacuation advisory has yet to be lifted.

Klenberger took shots of collapsed houses and bicycles lined up in the parking lot in front of JR Odaka Station.

"Sad," he repeatedly murmured.

There was a moment, however, when Klenberger flashed a radiant smile--when he saw a lone pine tree that withstood the 2011 tsunami in the city's Kashima district.

He recalled one symbolic tree in Cherynobyl, which fell down after all local residents were gone.

Klenberger is hopeful about the future of the "miracle" pine tree that survived the tsunami.

“It is difficult to imagine how it was like in the area before the earthquake and tsunami,” he said.

But he believes the pine tree will eventually draw locals back, he added.

It is rare to see news about Fukushima in his country, as Austrians are not interested in happenings in “a faraway country,” Klenberger said.

However, his story ideas on Chernobyl have been occasionally been picked up by local radio stations and newspapers.

He hopes the same will happen to his Fukushima stories as Japan will soon mark the fifth anniversary of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in March 2016.

As you can see at the far back of the picture behind the black hill at the upper right corner of the picture, there is a white structure from which there is smoke being released.

I know that there is an incinerator which was built in Futaba, and which started operation this last February 2015, incinerating 7 tons of contaminated waste daily. An incinerator, which no pictures are being published anywhere. Most of Fukushima people don't even know it exists.

But this is Tomioka, not Futaba. Is what we can see another incinerator?

I would like to know, how many incinerators have been built in Fukushima prefecture, and how many are in operation incinerating contaminated waste.

Because no matter what type of filters they must be using inside those incinerators, those incinerators must be still releasing many radioactive particles into the environment....

In 2011, up to beginning 2012, the Japânese government was transporting many debris, some of them contaminated in many prefectures outside of Fukushima to be incinerated, at that time many people fought to have it stopped. Then somehow, there was no more news about incineration in the Japanese media, then later the law on secrecy came.

I suspect that the Japanese government is continuing its contaminated waste incineration program, but this time sneakily, keeping it out of the media.

Please if someone has any information about incinerators and incineration, inform me by personal message.

I used Google Earth to get more screen caps of that location, which has a lot of contaminated waste bags nearby. I saw also many cars near that structure which indicates that many people are coling to work there. And on those close-up pictures by Google Earth you can still see constant smoking coming from that structure. I think I spotted, I found a second incinerator, beside the one I knew existed, the one in Futaba.

The one Futaba, I encountered one unique picture of it, at the beginning of its construction. Then no more pictures ever again.

How many incinerators that we don't know are in operation, spitting everyday radioactive particles into the sky to become scattered locally and internationally by winds and Jetstream???

It is indeed an incinerator in Tomioka:There was an announcement for the "ignition ceremony" on Mar. 19, 2015held at the facility marked by the red square on the map. The locationmatches with that in the photo and the google map. This is for "volume reduction" of decontamination waste, debris, etc.Max processing capacity: 500 tons/day.The announcement (in Japanese) is at:http://tohoku.env.go.jp/fukushima/pre_2015/post_8.htmlPDFmap:http://goo.gl/4tKdM5

It seems that there are already 8 incinerators in the Fukushima Prefecture, 7 of them finished to be constructed within this year and already in operation....

Saturday, 3 October 2015

Evolutionary biologist
Dr. Tim Mousseau shares findings from his unique research on the
biological effects of radiation exposure to wildlife from the nuclear
disasters at Chernobyl & Fukushima.

This is part 2 of a
3-part series of presentations on Fukushima contamination by independent
research scientists Ken Buesseler, of Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution, and Tim Mousseau, Department of Biological Sciences,
University of South Carolina.

FUKUSHIMA -- Police here will refer Tokyo Electric Power Co.
(TEPCO) and 32 current and former TEPCO executives to prosecutors in
connection with leaks of toxic water into the Pacific in the
aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, investigative
sources say.

The police will send papers on the case to the Fukushima District
Public Prosecutors' Office on suspicion TEPCO and the executives
violated the environmental pollution offense law.

Among the 32 individuals are TEPCO President Naomi Hirose, former
Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and former President Masataka Shimizu.
They are suspected of being negligent in their duties and releasing
radioactively contaminated water into the ocean from the crippled
Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.

An initial criminal complaint accusing TEPCO executives of
professional negligence resulting in injury or death was filed
jointly by individuals and representatives of a citizens' group. In
September 2013, the same complainants filed with the Fukushima police
against the TEPCO executives on suspicion of violating the
environmental pollution offense law.

The complaint says the central government ordered TEPCO to build
underground walls to prevent leaks of contaminated groundwater, but
that TEPCO postponed taking the measure, citing costs and other
reasons. Furthermore, the complaint accuses TEPCO of using weak water
storage tanks resulting in the leak of some 300 metric tons of
contaminated water, and of insufficient monitoring measures that led
to the delayed discovery of the leak and increasing the volume of
water that escaped.

A recent Health Ministry report showed that a number
of Japanese cities were still finding traces of Fukushima
related contamination in their drinking water. The amounts found
were low but they did include cesium 134, the shorter lived
contaminant from Fukushima Daiichi. A strontium 90 test was not
conducted on these samples.